static eyes
by musiiqu3z
Summary: based off: Aeris - Valhalla


**Static Eyes**

The Valhalla. A system where those cyborg soldiers have their bodies cloned if they were to die in battle.

These cyborgs are called 'Cascades'. They were created by coding to mimic the loyalty a human soldier they have to their leaders. But not the hindering, distracting emotions of sympathy, joy, mercy. The list goes on. They're distractions from the beautiful art of war.

Throw away the emotions. Leave the thirst for blood and the undying loyalty.

But errors will always occur.

Guns circled like prey. In the centre stood a male. His face had been contorted beyond human recognition. A ventilation mask glued to his face, blood seeping through the filters. His body covered in metal panels. The atmosphere hummed with black energy. Smoke seeped through the cracks of panels. Black, soulless eyes covered his face.

He was a creature that used to be human. An artist that's life was sucked out of him. Before, his hands were used to create music. Now, they're used for the sounds of bullets, explosions and screams.

No one wanted him to become this monster.

No one.

Not even those who created him.

The target spun around, his eyes blinking rapidly. Within some of his void-like eyes, static glitched. The ventilation mask was crumbling off his face. A tear rolled out one of his black eyes. Then another. He'd realised what was going on. A game. A game of hunter and hunted. But with a twist he was unfamiliar with.

He wasn't the hunter.

He was one being hunted.

He twisted around just to see the barrels of guns, ready to fire. Those who had the guns were obscured with a thick layer of smoke.

But this was exactly how he wanted to end. A coward's end. A bullet to the head. So he didn't have to go to the Valhalla. So he wouldn't have to go through this ordeal again. Being prodded with needles and syringes. Having his brain wired to the Cascade programming. Being locked up. Losing contact with friends and family.

He forced away the urge to lash out at those surrounding him. One swipe, one shot to the head. He'd wake to find men and women with surgeon masks behind a blinding light.

Black bolts of electricity sparked from the cracks in his armour.

Right now, there were three opposing forces.

His humanity, the soldiers armed with guns, and the Cascade programming.

He wanted to say something, but all that came out was a distorted sound. He sent a thought message that read:

'Kill me. End my suffering.'

And there was no recipient. No reply for his plea. Among those with guns pointed in his direction none of them were a Cascade? Lies. They probably had severed the connection with him. The cascade gripped his ventilation mask, smearing blood on his hands. He wanted to write, but the agraphia caused by the programming disabled him. He had to continue through every second of this ordeal.

Why won't they shoot him?

He looked up, head swinging around. He viewed the faces, as the smoke had lowered. They all wore ventilation masks. They were Cascades. New ones, due to their normal eyes. Sympathy rose in the throat of the target. His gaze met a Cascade smaller than him. Judging by her eyes, she looked young.

Too young. Too young to be holding that rifle. Too young to be wearing a gas mask. Too young to be a lab rat for this twisted program.

Then, a sense of recognition gripped him with a fist of iron. This girl was one of his friends, her memory lost in the coding. He thrust from the ground, twisting to face those with the guns. More familiar faces. More similar gazes. These were all old friends. Fellow artists painting with blood. Fellow artists playing with gunshots. Their art was now war.

Rage exploded within him like a mine. Something had landed onto it, creating a fireball of intense emotion. Tears of blood poured out his eyes like an artery being sliced open. Another mine had been exploded: a mine of distress. It mixed into the anger like gore and sweat. He clenched his bloodied fists. His audible breathing was shallow and quick. He squeezed his eyes shut, the sound of electricity ringing in the air. A force field surrounded him, sparking and gaining intensity by the second. The other Cascades reared back.

Everything seemed to slow down. Gunshots shattered the silence. Bullets failed to penetrate the shield of the target. The target raised his fists. Cascades left and right bracing themselves by dropping to the floor.

The field jittered and shook. The target's fists trembled by the energy being harnessed. The static in his obsidian eyes enlarged to cover them. Patterns flashed across the forcefield. His feet lifted from the cracked tarmac, hovering under a black cloud.

Time halted. The Cascade spread his fingers out.

An explosion shot out like a bullet from a gun. All the opposing Cascades who were standing had been thrown and shredded to pieces. The discharge caused glass from the nearby abandoned buildings to shatter. The Cascade was thrown into the tarmac because of the force. The energy pulsated through the air. The ground shook violently.

Minutes later, the destructive Cascade rested within a crater in the bloodstained road. A surviving Cascade rose from the dust and ash. This was the girl he looked at before. The world seemed to spin around her, tiny lights flashing in her vision. She blinked the feeling away and gripped her gun. She stepped forward, aiming her gun at the crater. Dust and ash were being whipped up by the chilly wind, and the girl pressed a button on her neck. A visor lowered to cover her eyes from the dust and ash. She reached the edge of the crater, and she stared into it. It was deeper than she thought, and in the centre, lay the target, motionless. She inched down the hole, careful not to slip. Her gun was held forward, pointing at the Cascade in the centre of the crater. With a click of a button behind her ear, she established a mind connection with him. She stopped in front of him.

She threw aside her rifle.

She fell onto her knees.

She caressed the side of his face, his eyes opening. Static danced within them, attempting to hypnotise her. This was a Cascade's primary defense.

She fought against the hypnotism, her irises glitching like his. He fought against his ability. He didn't want to hypnotise her.

The sound of static rang in her ears at a deafening level. This is all that was transmitted from the other Cascade's head. She dug her blunt, iron nails in his side, sealing her eyes shut. But an arcane force forced them to open and look at his eyes again. Those black, endless eyes with static jittering inside them. Her eyes were wide, obvious behind the tinted visor. She clenched her hand in a claw, lifting it up to his face. A smirk was evident on his face because of his crumbling ventilation mask. Her iron nails lengthened, growing into daggers. The static in her eyes quickened their unsettling performance whilst thoughts of murder consumed her. Her whole body trembled, a sinister grin hidden behind her ventilation mask. Her black heart threatened to explode.

"Goodbye, Charlie."

She shoved her dagger nails into his face. Blood poured from deep wounds as she wrenched them out of his grey flesh. She tore apart his gas mask like a tiger tearing at its prey. She stabbed his face over and over again until his whole face was smeared with gore.

In his last moments, smoke drifted out of his open mouth. The smoke was a deep red colour; the colour of blood. The girl was still trembling. The red smoke drifted into her filters, and she reared back.

She had inhaled the mysterious smoke.

The last Cascade writhed and clawed at her tight fitting armour. She tore into her flesh, drawing blood. The whites in her eyes drowned in black, poisoning the colour of her irises into a grim shade of obsidian. Pieces of metal surfaced from her back, building upon each other to form a gut-wrenching form of wings.

Static danced in her eyes. She was now an Error.

And you'll be swept away by what she can do.


End file.
